Efflorescence
by Mistress of Sarcasm
Summary: Five times Jareth doesn't kiss Sarah.


Hey everyone. Last summer, on the reccomendation of a friend, I saw the movie _Labyrinth_. And fell hopelessly in love. The story, the characters, the _music_ (Eat your heart out, HSM franchise!) completely won me over. But what sealed the deal was the always hinted at, but never quite outright stated relationship between Sarah and Jareth. What can I say, I'm a sucker for a movie where the guy will do anything to get his girl. Jareth darling, next time, don't kidnap her baby brother and use that as an ice-breaker. Anywho, I finally managed to get this little piece down on paper, so I hope you like it. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: If I owned _Labyrinth_, this story would not be fanon.

Beta: Aqualoner, of course. I love that girl.

* * *

1. **Windswept Moore**

The wind has strung her cheeks to crimson and there is the barest hint of eagerness in her voice, but all he can think about is the thrilling _thump-thump_ that is her heart, echoing from her chest. The rhythm resonates like one of his songs, and the tempo sets itself into his memory.

He slithers closer, because her white shirt is billowing about her arms and the breeze has become a gale of her fear and confidence, and has whipped her dark hair into a soft cloud around her. She smells of rain, he registers as his breath ghosts over her ear. Under the perfume she'd doused herself with earlier, there is the scent of rain and leaves and adventures. (_He finds it suits her so much more than gentle lavender or hard spices_.)

Perhaps it is the scent, or perhaps it is the sound of her heart, or perhaps it is simply the delightful irrational decision of man who doesn't know he's in love. Whatever the reason, he brushes his lips to her red cheek, and the heat that rushes to the skin pleases him more than it should.

He vanishes with a casual toss of his head, and smirks at her burning face, forcing himself not to be caught in those soul-deep eyes of hers.

(_He's already a trifle crazy; does he really need the sweet madness that love induces?_)

* * *

2. **Dark Alley**

She's pressed against the dark stone, looking anywhere but into his mismatched eyes. He laughs at her in his head, because now she is little more than a frightened young girl, and the bright crusader who challenged him on the hilltop is just a fading memory.

He leans over her (_to intimidate? Maybe. But it gives him a feeling of power over her. Later, he thinks of this moment, and laughs bitterly._), and stares down at her face. Her lips are redder – she's been biting them – and her cheeks have cooled to alabaster, but her eyes are still as bright as they were in the light of the moon when he swooped down and snatched the child she'd wished away.

" How are you enjoying my Labyrinth?" He croons (_because he cannot be anything but the villain she so wanted, and the seduction and leather and a voice like black velvet is all his own_), because the closest thing he's come to love in all his long years is the Labyrinth, and he wants to show her just how great his power is.

" It's a piece of cake." She whispered back defiantly, and a surge of heat thrums through his body. (_She's insulted his Labyrinth and insulted his power, and he wants nothing more than to press her against the rock of the wall and-_).

He brushes a bare kiss on her forehead, but it sears right through her skin, and her eyes burn.

(_" We'll see." He whispers, and sets his cleaners on her._)

* * *

3. **Dreamscape**

She is wearing a dress spun of gossamer and starlight and silver. (_Or maybe, gossamer and dreams. It isn't as funny as the ladies at his side seem to think, and the coy smile he present is belied by the yearning in his eyes_.) Her dark hair is caught up and pinned with bejeweled little blossoms, cheeks pale and eyes glazed over with the poison of his present. She scans the room, and he flits through shadows and corners, watching her in the growing restlessness.

Her hand is small and warm in his when he finally catches her. Everything about her – her hands, her feet, her pretty, deceptively fragile body – is small and dainty. Everything except her big, bright eyes, that stare at him with what he likes to believe is adoration, but knows is mistrust and suspicion. (_His girl is not stupid_.)

The courtesans laugh around them, making mockery of yet another foolish girl entranced by the Goblin King's crafty magic. But their ridicule unlocks something, and the glaze in her eyes lifts until she can see beyond the shroud he placed over her senses, and she struggles, her heroic role lending strength to what should be feeble arms.

He pulls her close, body meshed to his, and through the star-spun dress he feels the press of her curves, and (_she is too young! His mind hisses_) his blood sings in his veins. He looks directly into green eyes that look back and see him clear as day (_she is too strong! His mind screams. She will not fall for your tricks!_) and hears the _thump-thump_ of her heart, and kisses the beating pulse at her neck, smirking as it skips under his heated mouth. (_She is mine_.)

(_She shatters the glass that encases their dream world and hurls herself into the uncertainty of the empty space that is between slumber and vision. He watches her, vaguely wondering if the crash he heard was the glass or his heart breaking_.)

* * *

4. **Jigsaw Puzzle**

There is a stubborn set in her jaw as she surveys the scene from the edge. He stares at her, half puzzled, half surprised, as she grits her teeth and sets her mouth into a grim line. There is still no guarantee of her victory; her brother is still in his possession, and if she cannot get to him, then the baby will to him. (_He has another, sweeter prize in mind. He knows his girl; he knows what she'll give up for her infant sibling. He knows how to trap her_.)

It's cruel, he decides, but it's something a villain would do, and she did wish for a villain. She looks like a star, streaked against the black sky, almost glowing in her intense search. He whispers in between the rocks, an old rhythm (_thump-thump_) setting the pace of his movements. She turns as he appears before her, a flicker of something that isn't fear, but doesn't welcome him, passing over her face. Her cheeks flush (_for what? His presence? A kiss? He will give her that and more, if he can only-_) and her little red mouth opens, as if to say something to stop his advance.

He presses her between his body and the rock, and when she doesn't shy away, desire floods him like water. She eyes him, almost daring him to make a move, and something chokes up in his chest, and the splintered pieces of his heart (_shattered with glass and made whole only by a passing dream_) surge into his eyes, and the terrible knowledge strikes home at last (_the good guy always wins. But who is the hero here?_)

He leans in, and his lips brush her ear in some last effort (_to persuade her, to trick her, to place the shroud back over her mind_) to show her, and his voice is heavy with unshed tears and unfulfilled wishes (_who grants the wish-granter's wishes?)_

(_I can't live within you. And the omission sounds like a plea_.)

* * *

5. **The Abyss**

Her words hit like stones hurled into his gut, but he strives onwards, holding the crystal gleaming with promises (_her dreams, he tells her. His dreams, his mind whispers_) and the never-ending of a fairytale she used to play at when she was a child. She stumbles on her lines, because she can never remember that phrase (_he tells himself that his offer meant something to her, and her pause was her consideration. Or does that just mean that it hurts more?_), and he seizes at the lull in her monologue.

" I ask for so little." His voice is a murmur, and desperation has crept like a thief in the darkness into his tone. " Just fear me." (_Fear what though? She has absolute power over him_.) " Love me." (_Ah, his mind croons, now we get to the heart of the matter. Goblin King, you are pathetic_). " Do as I say and I shall be your slave." (_She won him the park on a stormy evening so long ago, a bare slip of girl in a dress too big for her, calling for the Goblin King of the old fairytale_.)

He moves against her, standing stiff and tall and proud against the backdrop of a world in shambles _(if she was a star before, she is a goddess now, and his entire body trembles with anticipation_), and cups her face with more tenderness than he has ever displayed. Her lips are moving soundlessly, rushing the words over in her head, trying to strain her memory, and he hovers over them, looking into the eyes that have held him captive for longer than he'd like to admit.

" Sarah." He breathes, and against the mouth just barely touching her own, Sarah whispers the vanquishing line.

(_The memory of the not-kiss is all that sustains him as the world rights itself, and she is lost to him forever_.)

* * *

6. **Under a Canopy of Stars**

Four years later, Sarah looks up to see a smirking Goblin King at the foot of her bed, watching her pack away the last of the possessions she's decided to take to university with her. He eyes her blue sweat pants and faded T-shirt and the thick, brown hair that is swept up into a ponytail. And even though his mouth is quirked, there is a not-quite-banked longing in his eyes that Sarah recognizes. (_Age has taught her a wisdom that blind faith and reckless courage never could_.)

" My, my, whatever are you doing, precious thing?" The endearment is supposed to be a subtle threat, but she hears the whisper behind it. (_I've missed you, my dear one_.)

" Packing. I'm going to university soon." Her tone is light, and she is proud. " It's been a while. I thought you'd forgotten about me, Goblin King."

" No snippy reply? No witty banter? No accusations of how it's not fair that I've suddenly appeared in your bedroom?" He moves forward, with the same grace he used so long ago (_A year is an eternity to the heart. How on earth has she survived four?_), and leans over her, hand braced on the wall. He's not so tall anymore, and she can look at him without craning her neck. And look at him she does, because age has also taught her strength, and it isn't a flush of anger that lights her cheeks.

" Really, Sarah." He purrs. " I'm almost disappointed. Here I was, expecting another one of our enthralling verbal spars, and you won't even-"

" Jareth."

She stops him dead, because in all the time they've ever spoken (_do the meaningful silences count?_), she's never called him anything but Goblin King.

(_She's been planning this reunion for four years. She never exactly imagined it in her bedroom, surrounded by boxes labeled with black marker and her half eaten dinner resting on a plate on her now sparse desk, but she finds it doesn't matter. He's here and he's real and she's going to make right what went wrong all those years ago_.)

Sarah moves quicker than lightning, curling her arms around his neck and hoisting herself up, staring into his eyes all the while, cheeks still flushed and mouth set in the same line as it was when she won her brother back (_determination is still determination, she reasons later, regardless of the motivation_). He stutters, or gasps, or does _something_, his face utterly alive with something like love and another thing that might be pain, and then Sarah kisses him.

She's remembered every one of his kisses, (_a brush on her cheek, a mocking peck on her forehead, a possessive mouth on her pulse, hot lips by her ear, and the final, cruel satire of a kiss against her mouth, as she hissed the last line_.) and she's decided that when she kisses him (_**when**__, not if_), she'll do it right.

It's hard and warm and urgent and desperate and frightening and so very _right_ it makes her body tingle, and then he's pressing against her, and her back is against the wall, then his hand is in her hair, or is her hand in his hair, does it even matter anymore, this is nice, this good, this is the way it should be, this is how it always will be, precious thing…

And this time, as Jareth pushes his insistent mouth against her open lips, Sarah whispers _I love you_, her hearting thundering in time with his.

* * *

(_thump-thump_)

* * *

He chased her 'til she caught him! Go Sarah!

Because we all know our favourite little bratty hero has got it _bad_ for the Goblin King. Long live...has fandom given it an official name yet? Sareth? Jarah? ...Those sound like something Jareth would name his children. He's that conceded. (But we all love him anyway, don't we?). Anywho, I hope you liked it.

MoS


End file.
